[Beth Sweet]

I'm not sure that I entirely buy that girls aren't going into science because their mom's are proud that they can't balance their checkbooks. I think that the problem lies a bit deeper: the self esteem/confidence (or lack thereof) of todays girls.

Yes there is a nerd stigma associated with science. But some of the most popular girls from my high school are now majoring in engineering. So I look further at those girls and notice something about them. They are strong and confident. They are not affected by the nerd stigma because they don't allow themselves to be.

My thoughts on how to fix it? Try to fix the confidence factor. It is the one part of this that we can control. We cannot control how their peers treat girls, but if we make our girls as self confident as they can be, then I think that there will be more of them going into science without fear of being "nerds".